1/🧵🎥 “It’s a very bad disease. It can be overcome.”
My #COVID patient tearfully speaks of his BIG DECISION on the ventilator.
This soldier & leukemia survivor made it through 3 weeks on a ventilator. How?
Video shown w his permission “to help others find hope, Doc.” #Hope
2/ This immunocompromised man was in massive viral septic shock from COVID.
Huge doses of vasopressors.
Gargantuan levels of O2 & vent pressure to save his life.
Lungs, Kidneys, Heart and Brain all failed.
3/ His wife was there with him daily.
We put up pictures of his kids and pets.
We talked to him about the things he loved every day (even when sedated and seemingly unable to hear us).
Somewhere in all of that, he made a silent decision…
4/ “Sir, while I was down and under, I made a decision.
“Over time, you have to decide to live. If you decide to #live then everything else falls into place.
“So in my mind, you decide to live & then everything will fall into place. And then eventually you work through it.”
5/ I asked, “Sir, you were on that ventilator so long. What was it like being delirious?”
Him: “You’re on the in & out. I asked one of my sons, what are you gonna do today? He wouldn't answer me. So I asked the next one. He wouldn't talk to me either. They weren’t there.”
6/ But my wife, she called up both of them and said "Dad needs to talk to you. You tell him what's going on for today." And that's everything right there.
He was hallucinating with ICU #Delirium, which is so common in COVID:
7/ I don’t want anyone to lose hope due to #PICS & #LongCOVID.
I tell him: “You can get your brain back. Brain cells have gone on vacation & we're gonna get them back through types cognitive rehabilitation - Sudoku, and Scrabble
3/ Believing those with #LongCOVID complaints is our 1st basic show of support!
“If people tell us they have new thinking & memory issues, I think we should believe them rather than require that they meet certain severity criteria.”
Dr. Apple UCSF
1/🧵 A sister & two brothers were born into a wonderful family. They led an exciting life. 4 months ago, 2 of them died young of #COVID, unprotected. The surviving sibling decided to get Vaxxed but stopped after 1 shot & is now on ventilator (CT scan) w COVID pneumonia. Read on…
2/ A teaching Point: This CT scan shows “holes” in his lung (red lines above & arrows👇) surrounded by white pneumonia.
The holes are previously damaged lung from smoking.
Millions in society, victims of misinformation, remain unprotected & the vaccine could save their lives.
3/ Let’s all do our part to teach others.
When polio hit, almost everyone wanted to be vaccinated despite the disclosed risk of getting polio from the live attenuated vaccine.
This vaccine is even safer and yet the untruths spewed by many have tainted our uptake.
2/ SHOCKER: Amazing work scientifically. Every med student is taught to gauge Cardiovascular risk history: Smoking, Obesity, HTN, Cholesterol, Family History…
Add COVID to the list. Solid data from @NatureMedicine of US Veterans used >11M contemporary + historical controls!
3/ Main figure shows both hazard ratios & excess burden per 1,000 persons of highlighted types of problems like strokes, V Tach & #POTS, myocarditis, heart attacks, heart failure & blood clots in 154,000 people 30 days after COVID vs. 5,637,647 contemporary controls.
2/ Dr. Farmer started his vocation of #SocialJustice by serving the beautiful people of Haiti, the world’s 1st Black republic. He looked in their eyes & saw their needs…HIV, malaria, Tb, hunger, poverty, neglect.
In response he took action…
(paintings below by my daughter)
3/ Paul Farmer is the central figure in Kidder’s 📚 “Mountains Beyond Mountains.” If you haven’t read it, order now.
Through his drive and insights we learned to say “Yes” to bringing modern medicine to the most remote settings of human life on Earth 🌍